Low voltage electrical wiring are used for low voltage electrical applications, such as coaxial cable and/or telephone outlets which is needed in both new building construction (as “new work”) or retrofitted in existing buildings. (as “old work”).
Traditional utility power supplied higher voltage applications require closed-ended electrical work boxes, which are utilized in buildings to distribute electrical power from the power supply to electrical devices such as outlets or switches.
A traditional electrical workbox includes a metal or plastic housing containing a recess for electrical components such as wire outlets or switches.
Presently, conventional electrical boxes are referred to colloquially as either new workboxes, for new building construction, or old workboxes, for retrofitting into existing buildings.
New workboxes have protruding accessory exterior sheaths for nailing the new workboxes to exposed wood or metal studs within a building. However, because the screw or nail mounting brackets protrude up from the external silhouette shape of the workbox, the brackets interfere with the flush mounting of the workbox within a hole within a building wall.
Moreover, old work boxes are frequently held in place by bent tabs which engage sheetrock boards thus minimizing stability, as the sheetrock is prone to gradually falling apart.
Existing workboxes for low voltage applications mainly include an open frame with a minimum of depth, wherein the frame is attached by fasteners above the confines of the workbox. However, in old work, adding fasteners above and/or below a workbox necessitates the removal of excess wall material, sheet rock, decorative wall coverings, etc.
In some applications, conventional, fairly flat “mud plates” are used to frame out the opening in a wall for low voltage wiring.
Among related patents for fairly flat, frame type openings with external fastener tabs, for low voltage wiring in a wall, include U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,452,813 B1 and 6,452,098 B1, both of Gretz, for terminal devices for low-voltage cable systems. U.S. Pat. No. 6,093,890, also of Gretz, describes a mounting device for low voltage cable wires, which can only be used with old electrical work in existing buildings.
Such prior art workboxes require protruding accessory exterior sheaths for nailing the workboxes to exposed wood or metal studs within a building. However, because the screw or nail mounting brackets protrude up from the external silhouette shape of the workbox, the brackets interfere with the flush mounting of the workbox within a hole within a building wall. Moreover, old work boxes are frequently held in place by bent tabs which engage sheetrock boards thus minimizing stability, as the sheetrock is prone to gradually falling apart.
However, the aforementioned devices are not easily mountable to a stud in a wall, without having exterior fasteners on the frame, and these patents do not describe a low voltage work box for both new and old low voltage electrical work, which is sturdy in construction and which can be easily mounted to a building stud, with minimal damage to surrounding wall surfaces.
An improvement in electrical work boxes for high voltage utility supplied voltage workboxes is shown in Applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 5,600,093 of Herth and Davis, which describes an electrical work box for new work and old work, wherein a novel attachment is described for attaching the electrical work box to a building stud via an angled screw mount within the electrical work box.
However, Herth and Davis '093 describes a closed-ended electrical workbox, which is not needed for low voltage wiring applications.